SPECIAL REPORT

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(CNN) -- With correspondents, producers and other staff based in 36 bureaus across six continents, CNN utilizes images as well as words to capture salient moments, people and places.

This special report, "World in 360°," showcases these journalistic efforts, by featuring some of the world's most interesting stories and painting an evolving portrait of what's happening, who's making it happen, how they're doing so, and why.

In the series, video, gallery and print pieces will be highlighted regularly on CNN.com as well as on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," which airs weekdays from 7 to 8 p.m. ET. (Anderson Cooper 360° showpage)

Even with their global scope and significance, these stories are often intensely personal.

Take Armin Cruz. He watched one of his best friends die while a U.S. soldier in Iraq. There, he also joined others in abusing detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison -- an incident, he says, that lasted less than 30 minutes, but turned his life upside down. (Full story)

After serving time in a military jail for his role in the prison abuse, Cruz was given a "bad conduct" discharge and returned home to Plano, Texas, haunted by memories of Iraq and his part in the Abu Ghraib ordeal.

While high-profile figures in politics, entertainment and other fields will get prominent play, "World in 360°" also portrays seemingly ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations -- some defined by danger, some by emotion, others by mystery.

They might be barbers in Baghdad, being targeted by militants with strict interpretations of Islam. Then, there's the man found on an English beach, dressed in a dripping wet suit. His identity unknown, he would not talk. Yet he played the piano with amazing skill.

"World in 360°" shines a spotlight on men like Herbert Stivers, now 78 but once a guard at the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, who says he may have unwittingly helped Adolf Hitler henchman Hermann Goering end his life. The special has also profiled a busy, 46-year-old mother working to balance family, her career as an attorney, and her other role -- as Great Britain's first lady, Cherie Blair.

CNN's reach extends around the world, from Sydney, Australia to Johannesburg, South Africa to Cairo and Rome and Moscow.

From Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, the network's 10 domestic bureaus cover the United States.

In the combustible Middle East, CNN's Baghdad and Jerusalem bureaus are focal points.

Asia has more bureaus, 12, than any other continent except North America -- which, in addition to those in the United States, includes staff based in Mexico. CNN is also the only American-based broadcast network to maintain a full time bureau in Cuba.

And Europe figures centrally in the network's coverage, with six bureaus spanning the continent.

Return to this special report by typing "CNN.com/worldin360" into your Web browser.